


No Small Thing

by SummerAtLast



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Gen, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:24:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2658551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerAtLast/pseuds/SummerAtLast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nilesy finds a sick kitten and brings it to Kirin for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Small Thing

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the title and the kitten fact checking, Three!

The bell over the door rang decisively, and Nilesy came into Kirin’s shop with a swirl of cold air. He was hatless and gloveless, and the cold burned his cheeks and fingers. 

Kirin looked up from doing accounts on his laptop next to the till. Nilesy’s face was pinched, and he held a hand cupped over his heart as if protecting an injury. Kirin couldn’t see blood or rips in the fabric of Nilesy’s quilted winter jacket, but that was never a guarantee.

“Do you need help?” Kirin asked, putting away the calculations of paper and metal given and owed, and started wondering about blood and favors. He would help Nilesy, of course. Nilesy was one of his favorite customers, and would continue to be so for a very long time if Kirin had any say in the matter.

The door drifted shut behind Nilesy without a sound, and Kirin stood up. Nilesy paused, biting his lip, then moved towards Kirin. He unzipped his jacket carefully, keeping his hand cupped to his chest as the zipper peeled down. There was a kitten inside his jacket, wrapped in his missing hat. The kitten was thin and dirty, the color of a dustbunny, and reeked of urine, sickness, and the sour smell of garbage cans.

“ _ It  _ needs help,” Nilesy said.

“It needs a lot of help,” said Kirin, eyeing it doubtfully. Kirin liked kittens, but he liked them warm and soft and purring. This one was runny-eyed and weak, turning its head away from Kirin’s gaze. He could see the fat black fleas crawling through its sparse, matted fur.

“ And you’re going to help it,” said Nilesy with the confidence of a car rolling backwards down a hill. “I need -  _ it  _ needs a cup of milk and, and medicine or something, I don’t know. It’s sick, you have to help it.”

“What happened to its mother?” Kirin asked. It was far too small to be weaned, even for a street cat.

“I don’t know,” said Nilesy, “but she wasn’t there, and someone needs to be. So I know you don’t sell milk, you sell plants, but you do make tea here, and people put milk in tea, and I have money, I can buy it off you.”

“No,” said Kirin.

Nilesy looked at him belligerently. “You better not start any of that favor crap,” he declared, “this is too important. For free or for money, because I can’t owe you anything else.”

Lomadia must have been talking to him about that. She’d come to the shop in a whirlwind of outrage the other day to close Nilesy’s tab and issue a moratorium on free samples. She cared about Nilesy fiercely, and guarded him from friend and foe alike.

“They don’t drink cow’s milk,” said Kirin gently, meeting his eyes. “It will make them sick. Kittens need formula.”

Nilesy blushed as if he had been chided, and broke away from Kirin’s gaze. He looked down at the kitten cupped in his hat, and tucked an earflap over it. “Where do you get it?” he asked quietly.

Kirin shrugged. “At this hour, the shops might be closed. I probably have some in the back room. Along with a fleacomb. I’ve raised kittens before.”

Nilesy frowned, thinking hard, but it was a foregone conclusion. The shop was warm, the kitten was weak, and Kirin’s offer was generous. The streets were cold and dark beyond the golden glow of Kirin’s windows, and it was a long way home.

“Okay. But this is for the cat, not for me.”

“Alright,” agreed Kirin. “For the cat.”

Nilesy followed him behind the counter and through the employees-only door. Kirin took his slippers off, lining them up on the mat. He took the kitten from Nilesy, letting him kneel down and use both hands to struggle with his slush-encrusted laces. Kirin padded away barefoot on the thick carpet of moss, taking the kitten to a long workbench with a built-in sink.

Nilesy followed a minute later in his wet socks, stripped of his jacket and scarf, windblown hair smoothed down a little. Kirin was pleased to see he’d found the coat rack on his own. Nilesy pushed up the sleeves of his sweater. “Right then. Where do we start?”

Kirin directed him to fill the sink with an inch of warm water and find a washcloth. He kept his hand over the kitten, trying not to wince at the feeling of the greasy fur, the crawling fleas, and the tiny, fragile heartbeat. The kitten’s back rose and fell under the warmth of his hand. He itched already with the phantom bite of fleas, and the kitten had soiled the hat.

Nilesy cast worried glances at the kitten as he held his wrist under the running water to test the temperature, then plugged the sink. His mouth opened, then shut when Kirin glanced at him. He wanted the kitten back already, though he had found it less than an hour ago and handed it over less than a minute ago. Kirin could see the ache in him, the tenuous newborn tie between Nilesy and the kitten stretched tight with anxiety, but Nilesy held his tongue out of deference to Kirin and a vague hope that Kirin was working some sort of magic on the kitten. He wasn’t, of course.

Kirin detached the kitten’s fumbling claws from the hat and handed the mewling creature to Nilesy. Nilesy’s shoulders slumped with relief. He cupped his hands around it, murmuring reassurances to it. Kirin tested the temperature of the water, then lathered up his hands with a squirt of liquid from a nearby dispenser.

“Use this,” he said. “Just a little bit on the washcloth, and pet the kitten with it. It’ll get rid of the fleas.”

“Right, like a mama cat,” said Nilesy. “Is it… a sanitizing potion thing?” he asked, suddenly wary of the price of magic.

“Dish soap,” said Kirin.

“Oh.” Nilesy looked almost disappointed.

Kirin grinned, rinsing his hands. Mortals. Didn’t want to be enchanted, but were so disappointed when you didn’t even try. It was one of his favorite things about them. “Don’t let the water get cold,” he said. “It’s important to keep kittens warm. They can’t do it themselves.”

Nilesy lowered the kitten into the warm water, keeping one hand under its belly to protect it from the metal of the sink. He stroked the washcloth over the kitten, from ears to tail. Kirin wondered if Nilesy even realized he was crooning to it under his breath. He watched Nilesy dip the corner of the washcloth into the water to clean it off, and begin another stroke.

Kirin watched him gently clean its back and under its chin before pulling his eyes away and stirring himself to action. He crushed a flea on the surface of the workbench, then swept the filthy hat into a wastebasket. He doubted Nilesy would remember to ask for it back, and the wastebasket was at least enchanted against stench and vermin, both of which were now prominent features of the damp hat. He pushed the wastebasket under the workbench.

The kitten supplies where where he remembered them. He picked up a can of kitten milk, a fleacomb, a clean bottle, and an old towel, and piled them into an empty cardboard box he wouldn’t miss. Nilesy was still bent over the sink when he returned, his face tender as he talked to the kitten. There were soap suds on his hands, and on his cheek from where he must have tucked a stray wisp of hair behind his ear. Nilesy tapped another drop of soap out of the dispenser, and the the kitten mewled a rusty protest as he turned it over to clean its belly.

“Don’t you worry, mister kitten,” said Nilesy, “we’ll get those nasty fleas off you, and it’ll be fine. I know, I know, this part isn’t fun, but it has to happen.” He dabbed at the kitten with the washcloth, soft against its stark ribs.

Kirin laid a hand on Nilesy’s wrist, tugging it back a little to get a better look at the kitten, and Nilesy stilled under his touch, looking up at him. Kirin quelled the urge to rub the soap bubbles off Nilesy’s cheek.

“That’s the worst of it,” he said. “Rinse the soap off so the kitten doesn’t lick it, and we can get the rest with the fleacomb.”

Nilesy lifted the dripping kitten and put it down on the towel Kirin offered. The water was gray and foul, and Kirin pulled up the plug, careful to wash all the waterlogged fleas down the drain. Kirin rubbed the kitten with a fold of towel, and it protested weakly before giving up and letting him dry it off. The towel was old, but bleach white, and the fleas showed up starkly against it. Kirin showed them no mercy as he gently ran the fleacomb over the kitten.

The kitten seemed to have left the gray behind in the water. Its damp fur was almost caramel colored, and Kirin could see the shine of stripes on it. He suspected a few more baths would leave it orange. At least it didn’t smell like garbage anymore.

“What did it even get into?” he asked, finishing a smooth stroke down the kitten’s tail and running his thumbnail over the comb to pop a flea.

“I don’t know,” said Nilesy. “It was in the garbage.”

“So it doesn’t belong to anybody,” said Kirin.

“Even if it did, it’s not theirs anymore,” said Nilesy fiercely. “You can’t treat a cat like that and expect to keep it, it’s just not right. There are laws against that.”

Kirin kept his hands light on the kitten, and watched Nilesy’s face. Nilesy’s voice shook with the strength of his convictions, and his eyes were shining with that strong human blend of protectiveness, outrage, and sadness at the wrongs of the world. Kirin drank it in, even as his chest tightened with the urge to smooth out the crease between Nilesy’s eyebrows.

“Is it your cat now?” he asked mildly.

Nilesy looked down at the kitten with alarm. “I don’t think the lease allows for cats,” he hedged. He stroked the wet fur with a fingertip. “I’ve never taken care of a kitten.”

That didn’t mean no. Kirin took his hands off the kitten, busying himself with opening the can of kitten milk, and when he cast a glance at Nilesy, he had his hands on the kitten, keeping it warm and trying to urge a purr out of it. It was only a matter of time, Kirin concluded. Humans formed attachments so fast. The only question was whether he would have time to claim it as his before it died. Though Nilesy had cleaned away the discharge of infection, its eyes were still half-closed, the white membrane showing, and it was too exhausted to respond much to Nilesy’s touch.

Nilesy hadn’t even claimed the cat as his own yet, but Kirin could see the desperation in his eyes as the kitten dragged in each tired breath. He cupped the kitten between his hands like a guttering candle he was trying to protect from the breeze. Kirin rested his gaze on Nilesy as Nilesy tried to put on a reassuring smile for the cat. He was certain that Nilesy would pay the price for this cat’s life willingly, and even thank him for it as he paid. He would be grateful for Kirin’s help. Kirin took the milk away to warm it up and pour it into the bottle. Nilesy, too preoccupied with the kitten, didn’t even ask if he put anything in it. He hadn’t, of course.

“Do you want me to put a drop of healing potion in it?” he asked, revealing the small brown glass vial in his palm. It was labeled in tiny writing, and had a dropper built into its lid. “It’s safe to use on cats.”

Nilesy startled, and tried to focus on the deal. “Um. For the kitten,” he said. “Not as a favor to me.”

Kirin laughed, delighted. “I’ll put it on the kitten’s tab.”

He squeezed a drop of potion into the bottle. It would have looked disappointingly like water to Nilesy, but to Kirin’s eyes it gleamed with the oil-slick iridescence of magic. It  _ was  _ a healing potion, of course. No more, no less. The kitten was burning with sickness and parasites, and a drop of magic was no guarantee, but Nilesy hadn’t asked for more.

Kirin closed the vial and screwed the top onto the doll-sized bottle of milk. He offered the milk to Nilesy. “You should be the one to do this.”

“Right, right,” said Nilesy, accepting the bottle. He slid a hand under the kitten, untangling its claws from the towel as it cried. It mewled and snagged its claws against his sweater as he held it to the warmth of his chest.

Kirin wondered if Nilesy was even aware of what he was doing. If he could feel the gentle coil of debt wrapped around the bottle in his hand, the subtle balance of rights and duties shifting as Nilesy bumped the rubber teat against the kitten’s mouth, trying to coax it to drink. Probably not, he decided, settling onto a stool. He nudged another stool out from under the workbench with his foot, and Nilesy settled onto it without looking, sure that it would hold him securely. 

Kirin wasn’t entirely sure what Lomadia had been teaching Nilesy, but it certainly wasn’t the magic of hearth and threshold, or he would never have brought Kirin a life to save. The kitten latched onto the bottle Nilesy offered, chewing on the rubber tip until some milk wound up in its mouth, and the debt slid around its neck like a thin green collar only Kirin could see.

Nilesy flashed Kirin a hopeful smile, and Kirin smiled back. “It’s working,” Nilesy said, “I think Mr. Cat will be alright.”

“Is that its name?” asked Kirin. Body warmth and a name and a bellyful of milk were no small thing, and Nilesy gave them so readily. Kirin watched the collar extend hopeful tendrils around Nilesy’s wrist as he held the bottle.

“Oh, I don’t… it might be a girl cat?” Nilesy looked doubtful.

Kirin leaned forward and checked under its tail, brushing his fingers against Nilesy’s sweater. “It isn’t,” he said, leaning back.

“Right. Mr. Cat it is, then,” Nilesy told the kitten. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? Yeah, you’re my good kitty, drinking your milk. Gonna be big and strong.” The kitten placed a paw against Nilesy’s hand as he held the bottle, kneading his fingers, and its eyes slipped shut. Kirin wondered if Nilesy could feel the claim the cat had on him now, and the claim he had on the cat. He had to. Humans may not have understood such things properly, but they had an instinct for it. Nilesy wouldn’t walk out of Kirin’s shop without this kitten. It was his, and so were its debts. The green twisted around Nilesy’s wrist, delicate but unbreakable.

Milk dribbled down the kitten’s chin as it slurped. There hadn’t been much in the bottle, but the kitten was exhausted before finishing it, stomach stretched tight with the unexpected weight of being able to drink until it was full. It turned its face away from the bottle, tucking itself into the warmth of Nilesy’s chest.

“Come on, Mr. Cat,” crooned Nilesy, “there’s plenty more. Don’t you want it?”

“It probably will, after it’s had a rest,” said Kirin. “They need to be fed fairly often. And burped.” 

Nilesy looked at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, it’s easy, just pat it on the back. Like a baby.”

“But he’s sleeping,” Nilesy protested, then caught the look in Kirin’s eyes. Nilesy put down the bottle. “Sorry, Mr. Cat,” he whispered. It squeaked in protest as Nilesy tapped it on the back, and it tried to burrow into his sweater. Nilesy would have missed the quiet burp, but he didn’t miss the dribble of kitten formula on his sweater. He made a face and Kirin handed him a washcloth, already damp.

“They also do that, just like a baby.”

Nilesy wiped the kitten’s face and then his sweater. “Do I have to change diapers too?”

“Actually…” Kirin laughed at the look on his face. “Just be grateful you’re not a cat. They have to do this with their tongue. Just pet them with the washcloth until it comes out.”

Nilesy pulled an exaggerated face.

“It’s your responsibility,” said Kirin mildly. “Isn’t it?”

“Well, Mr. Cat, you’re worth it,” said Nilesy, squaring himself up to the task. “We’re in this together.” The kitten didn’t disagree with his assessment, though it didn’t accept the cleaning with any amount of grace or stoicism.

Kirin folded the towel to fit the cardboard box and poured the remaining kitten milk into a small mason jar, then put both the jar and the empty can in the box. After a moment of consideration, he put the fleacomb in too. He could always get another. He interlocked the flaps of the box and folded it shut. The offended kitten noises subsided into sleepy squeaks and then soft breathing, and Nilesy tossed the washcloth into the sink

“Right,” said Nilesy. “Yeah. We should get going.” He tugged at the neck of his sweater and carefully tried to slide the kitten inside, wincing at the snag of its claws on the wool. He detangled it with the exaggerated tenderness of a bomb disposal unit, then tried again, slipping the kitten into his sweater. He held the kitten in place from the outside and tried to ease his hand out of his sweater without waking it. The smooth rhythm of the kitten’s breath caught, and a thin, thready purr drifted up.

They stood together, barely breathing, listening to the purring of the kitten Nilesy held over his heart. At last, Nilesy took a deep breath and tugged his sleeves down.

“Thank you,” he said. “I know you didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Kirin. “You should probably take the rest of the milk too. Don’t want to run out in the middle of the night.” He offered Nilesy the cardboard box, and Nilesy tucked it under his arm with a nod of thanks.

“That’s it,” said Kirin, “unless you want to stay for a cup of tea.” He winked.

Nilesy laughed. “Definitely not.” His face lit with the pleasure of dodging the inevitable trap, and his shoulders relaxed a fraction with relief that it was such an obvious trap. Kirin smiled at him.

“Then unless there’s something more you want, I’m closing out the shop. I don’t get overtime.”

Nilesy hesitated. “I’m sorry,” he said. “About that favor stuff earlier. I didn’t mean it.”

“It’s fine,” said Kirin. “Lomadia has your best interests at heart.”

  
  
  


 


End file.
